Foxwoods-Poker not so good but...

Mini Baccarat was great. So great in fact...I'll probably never play blackjack again. I just bet the 'player'...of the 3 bets (tie, banker, player) you can bet in mini bac...and I basically ran 500 into nearly 1200 in two separate sessions.


I played an 80 turbo at 9 PM...an hour after reg. started. That didnt last long. Then got felted in the poker room playing 1-2 NL. Every hand I had was second best...plus some dude pushed all in with A high on a rag flop..I called with Q's and he hit his ace on the turn. That one hurt...it was a pot of 90. I also lost 200 on slots!
After 2 sessions of mini baccarat I left up about 400 so.....

The Wonder of....

..a long weekend...
I'll be at Foxwoods on Sunday. I'll be hanging with the Wifey all day long....but at 8:00PM...I just may jump into the 80.00 Turbo in the Poker Room. Kid free....dog free...cat free...for a whole 24 hours....if anybody is around the 'woods then text me or email me........

10-10-10

I know...it's not 10-10-10 when I posted this but hey....it. looks. cool. period. (redundancy is awesome). I haven't been bank rolled for much else but 3-10 dollar tourneys etc. lately...my run in late spring-late summer ended abruptly. Most likely due to crappy play but also the new schedules for everybody in my family. My wife started working again as a teacher in Boston. That means our earning are back to where we were in '07 when I moved down to my new house. That is all well and good...but....that also means our 2+ year old has to go back into daycare. It also means I have to drop off both kids to daycare and Kindergarten in the AM. We are scheduled to the minute every morning to say the least. To get our new schedule started my daughter got sick as soon as she went into daycare. That f'd everything up and I got the brunt of the sickness last week as well. I'll tell you what. It doesn't matter if you have one stay home or both work...you are going to be broke no matter what. Mortgage, daycare, kindergarten, bills, bills, and more bills. ugh. That is why I grind the small buy in tourneys for 5-6 years straight. So...now that I have the obligatory FML section of the post over with.....A little update on the current Poker life is needed NO?
I haven't been able to play any 'live' poker so most of the playing has been online. I am mostly used to that for the last 5 years but....I needs me some live poker once in a while. The last time I played a live tourney was at the Seabrook poker room on a dreary rain soaked nor'easter night during my summer vacation. Needless to say that the play reflected that of a charity tournament. In a word...BAD! The last time I was there a guy called my all in bet with a Q and a 9. The board had an Ace, a Queen, and a 5 or something. I had A-J or Diamonds and raised to start the hand. So he drew out to two pair.....I think the last words I heard him say were "It's about time that happened to me". My last words before I walked out were "Jesus Christ". Most people had a dumbfounded look on their faces. That was my intro. to Seabrook.
So this weekend I was sick of playing online and was just hoping my wife would do something like say get a reservation to Foxwoods or something? I took Monday off as a vacation day as we don't have Columbus day off in the private sector. My parents graciously asked if we wanted them to babysit for our kids overnight on Sunday. "um....yeah....yes....yesssss we do" I had a glint in my eye and my wife heard the conversation. So as the kids were playing in the other room she gets laptop PC out and starts surfing the internets. I had a peripheral view of the screen and I saw Foxwoods. Was she doing this for my upcoming 40th birthday? Was she just checking her dream card points balance?? Yes and Yes were the answers. We got a cheap room at the 'Two Trees Inn' that is on the grounds of Foxwoods but a little detached and you need to take a shuttle to get there. The shuttle runs every 5 minutes. Notice how I skipped the travel down there and everything else? It only took a few minutes to get ready and GONE! It's been about a year since we've been there and this was mostly for a relaxing time away for 24 hours. So the 'Two Trees Inn' is closest to the casino located over the Poker room at Foxwoods. Get where I'm going here? So I dabbled around the slots with wifey for a while...she looks at me and says...."OK....I can see that you're dying to get down to the Poker room so why don't you go and we'll meet back at the Inn later"? "Um.....yeah....OK".....beeline to poker room. It's a good thing the wifey doesn't play poker.....she reads me like a book.
I think this was the shortest poker session I've played down there ever. I was there for about 2.5 hours. Only because I was tired...not because of a bad session. We got there around 8 PM and I didn't get down to the poker room until about 11:30 PM. I bought in short since...well I didn't have a huge amount of money. I bought in for 180.00. It's a 1-2 NL table and there was plenty of action right away. I figure If I bust out I'll get some sleep/rest/relaxation so it's all good. The table wasn't full the whole time I was there but I'll do my best to get the lay of the land on the table.
To my left was quirky Internet kid. He had a baseball hat and goofy air force sunglasses. I had a side view of his eyes so I actually picked up some tells from him. His M.O. was incessant talking about pot odds, fold equity, his favorite hand, why someone played a hand this way..that way...blah blah f'n blah. Most people wanted to stab their eyeballs with a pencil but it didn't bother me. I thought it was kind of funny. Next to him was a large dude with a Celtics hat on. He played a lot of pots and was perpetually short stacked. He yo-yo'd for a few hours being the loose Aggressive type....or at least until I knocked him out. The guy next to him had a huge stack of chips...he had a Celtics (Celts hat #2) hat on and seemed to be a real solid player. Guy next to him was a loose-Agg. dude who yo-yo'd quite a bit. One of the few without a baseball hat. Guy next to him was a sort of angry dude who wanted to stab quirky internet kid in the eye with an icepick. He was kind of tight but couldn't let go of A-Ko for the life of him. He had a Red Sox hat. The guy sitting to his left was an older dude with a southern drawl. He was solid. He reminded me of a character movie guy. Not sure who he is but he looked a lot like him and of course sounded like him. Kid next to him was another Red Sox (Red Sox hat #2) hat and made Quad Jacks and promptly got a stack after quirky Internet kid and Indonesian guy sitting directly on my right bet into them on the flop. He promptly lost his stack two hands later to friendly (he liked to talk about his hands etc. giving a lot of info. away therefore friendly) Indonesian guy on my right. Kid next to him was another dude with a Red Sox hat (Red Sox hat #3). This kid was hilarious. He was drunk and wouldn't stop talking about hands after they were played. Funny stuff. He shoved his open ended straight into the Celtics hat #2 guy and the guy thought it over for like 5 minutes then folded. The drunk kid showed his open ended straight and the the Celtics hat #2 guy said he folded the same hand. Lastly next to the drunk kid (Red Sox hat #3) was the Indonesian guy to my right. I threw away A-Ko and A-Qs a few times after raising Pre-flop and then making continuation bets to a few players. Most had some believable bluffs....but I wasn't going to lose my stack with nothing on the board. That makes me tight at Foxwoods. It's been a while since I've been there of course...but yes that is tight. I wasn't really trying to build a tight image but after an hour or so that was what was thought by most of the other players. They told me. I used that later.
I had a hand where I raised pre-flop with A-Qh and a 3 heart flop fell. This was of course before the 'Tight' image was somehow stuck on my forehead. 4 callers. I raised to 8 pre-flop most of the time. Sometimes to 12. I got callers until I started showing great hands at showdowns later in the evening. So anyway five callers on my flopped nut flush. I checked. There was a raise and re-raise and my all in. Nobody called the all in...but that was a typical hand for the next two hours. Quirky Internet kid was providing plenty of entertainment and unnecessary poker strategy for hours. He and Drunk kid were hilarious and kept the table somewhat loose....both in mood and play. I had quite a few playable hands....more so than usual. Most of the time that I've spent there in the past has been folding crap for what seems like hours on end. There were some heated words between Red Sox hat dude #2 and quirky Internet kid but somehow he diffused the situation with some well timed humour. He also got stacked by the Quads of Red Sox hat dude #3 earlier so he got lots of action. I did actually see his pupils get bigger when he saw a flop on one of his pre-flop raised hands. I didn't think I would ever get to use that tell but I had a side-view sitting directly to his right. The other guy obviously had no clue because of the goofy Air force type sun glasses he had on. He did make an interesting move on a hand between the two of us.....a straddle-bet hand. Being the quirky Internet dude that frequents Foxwoods he put the straddle bet out and everyone folded. I called. I had Ac-2s. The flop was Qc-8c-2c. I bet 20 having the nut flush draw and he raised to 40. I called of course and a non club 5 fell. OK...I got spooked and checked the non club 5....he went all in. FAWK! what the hell did he have on a stupid straddle bet? I went into the tank and started a conversation with him. He was confident and didn't look like he was bluffing. Everything in my gut told me to fold. "I'll show you my hand if you can guess what it is" he said. I thought it over folded and guessed pocket 8's. Sure enough he flopped silly...but he also knew I was on a flush draw. After reading all those poker books I think I'm finally picking up the right physical tells etc. Another 2 or a club and would have been one of those hands that everybody screams about and everybody else in the room turns their head to see what's up. At that point I was up to about 250 even after that hand so the night was still young. There was also a couple of  people that busted after an hour. I think it was the older dude with the southern drawl and the kid who flopped quad J's earlier. He reloaded short after losing most of his stack to the Indonesian dude to my right....I think he had J's again and the Indo. dude had Q's. After another half hour I started getting some interesting hands and coordinated flops to go along with them. I had a pair of J's in under the gun and raised to 12. There were two callers one across the table and the Indonesian guy in the BB. A flop of 2h-4s-7x fell. Indonesian guy bet 30....I raised to 60...he went into the tank. He tried to get info. out of me and was talking to me...I knew he was going to fold at this point. I'm guessing he was betting his draw. Although I may have gotten him to fold Q's. I'm not sure but he muttered "Nice bet" and folded after thinking about it for a long time. My small raise looked real Strong to him and that was my intention. He also said..."if you shoved there I would have snap-called". After he said that I knew I made him fold Q's or even K's.
I had another interesting hand against the drunk kid in the baseball hat. I raised to 12 again in early position with pocket black 9's. This time everybody folded except drunk kid. He held out his hand above the table with a call and said..."I'm calling...I could have anything". At this point that was very true...he shoved his stack with an open-ended straight earlier. The flop 2s-3c-9s...bingo. He bets 15...I called. 5c on the turn. I checked and he bet I think 30. I shoved at this point and he went on a drunken whine-fest. He was quite unlucky but he liked to steal pots and I knew this was another one. He eventually folded and left after some drunken banter. "FML" he said a few hand later holding Pocket K's out in front of him. That made me laugh because he raised and got two callers and then an ace flopped. That was it for him and he said "I'm going to take the rest of this to the craps tables...I can't believe this."  I think there were 7 of us left at this point. There were more hands played and the table turned out to be one of the more entertaining I've ever sat at in Foxwoods. Of course winning some cash makes one a little more jovial. The last two times I've played cash a Foxwoods I've come out of it with a lot more than I went with. I wonder if the Mohegan Sun is sucking up a lot of the regulars. I come to Foxwoods about 2 times a year on average and I swear I play against the same people every time. I know that I've sat and played against quirky Internet kid and Red Sox hat #2 guy before. So the last hand that I played of the night was against Celtics hat dude #1. Everybody folded to me on the button and I looked down at two red Kings. I raised to 12 thinking that the blinds would think that I was stealing with anything. They told me I was tight so they probably thought I was trying to exploit my image. Both blinds called though! I raggy flop fell and the BB bet 30....I looked over at his stack and he had about 60 more. I raised his bet to 90 putting him all in. The quirky Internet kid folded in the SB. The BB called and my K's dominated his J's. The table broke up after that. It was 2:00 AM and I needed sleep. I just got through two weeks of kids being sick and me being sick so. Instead of playing all night and losing back half my stack I called it a night. I think I left with 450.00 altogether after buying in with 180.00. Fun Times at Foxwoods. It has been a long time......

Foxwoods Sunday

It would be nice to go to Foxwoods every Sunday....but that will be my last time for while. With the wife being hugely pregnant I don't want to be too far away (2.5 hour drive) just in case. I picked up Biggestron AKA Bdidde on the way to Foxwoods and we were on our way at about 7:30AM.
Getting knocked out of the 80+20 NL tourney 25th or so out of 175 certainly sucked! 20 people get paid. I probably shouldn't have made it that far anyway but at least I can claim the last longer bet...a hefty 25.00 mind you. A couple of the guys have final tabled this push fest and made hefty sums of money. I was in survival mode for the last 2 hours. I had to push under the gun with A-2o to avoid blinding out....I turned trip two's and tripled up. I later pushed with 6's in late position after surviving another rotation. The blinds were 800-1600 and I was called and doubled up again. I finally got a pocket pair better than 9's late in the game and pushed from the button. It looked like a steal and the BB called and doubled me up to about 17.5K. Not much to report after that...the blinds got up to 1500-3000 with 300 ante. I couldn't defend my blinds with two pushes in front of me with a hand like 9-4o. After 2 more orbits I pushed one last time with Q-10o and the old man in the BB called much to my surprise. Usually the old guy just grimaces and reluctantly folds his hand while grumbling about young whippersnappers. He called J-Ko and neither improves but K-high wins.

After the tourney and a cool off session I went to the cafe to get some food. I was getting a headache and usually when I get hungry at the casino I get a headache. I forgot my Sudafed at home...I usually pop it like skittles in the casino. I got a New England Turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes. Headache? Gone. I like the poker room but I kind of miss the old poker room. It was right next to the race book and the huge race book bar. You could actually get a few drinks at the bar and wait to be seated. It was also much brighter upstairs with all the windows...I didn't realize it but it was kind of dark in the WPT room.

CK and F-Train (plays 10-20 limit games....way out of my league) showed up to play some cash games...I guess they stayed there the night before. I met them....again (I met them both at the Winter Classic but I was so sauced I didn't think either remembered....I kind of did). Rumours of Donkette bringing Yankees-RedSox tickets for everybody circulated around the bloggers in the poker room. Bdidde ended up not playing the tourney but was able to play cash all day long. I think Donkette was sick or something so CK and F-Train headed back to NY later on. I got to sit at a 1-2 NL table later on but the table behind me had CK, Rakefeeder, WWonka69, and some others. I didn't want to go sit down with them at first but the table I was at was just...boring. I got a seat change and the table was a lot of fun. Straddle-bets were thrown out and the table stated to loosen up. I got involved in a couple of pots but not too many...mostly folds to be bets from the Asian lady who sat to the right of the dealer (no not CK). I told Bdidde we would leave at 6:00. That's when this crazy hand came up :
I was in the BB with 9d-2d. There were at least 3 calls including the guy to the right of Rake, Rake, and CK. The flop came down with 9x-6x-2x. BB special for me. (I can never remember the details of my big hands...so if there are details that are wrong I apologize. I usually remember the big pots I lost and the exact play or lack thereof). I think CK threw out a 20 dollar bet and was called by me, Guy next to Rake, and Rake raised maybe to 40.00. Anyway, CK went all in for the rest of her chips...maybe another 65.00 or so. I didn't want anymore play from the other guys after that...I went all-in over the top with probably 200.00 or so. The guy next to Rake was really struggling (I thought....oh shit...maybe he has 6's? nah...I think he had an over pair...he eventually folded). Rake had 9-Q come to find out...he struggled with it a bit but made the right lay down. CK turns over 9x-Ax (all four 9's were out at this time) and I show the 9-2d. I think a 5x landed on the turn and then another two landed on the river to give my 2's full of 9's. Overall I could have just called the all in and maybe one of the other guys would have gone all in....but I felt I had to protect the two pair. Did I play this wrong? I don't know...I don't play a lot of cash but I've played quite a few sessions of 1-2 NL at Foxwoods. Anyway we left at 6:30 to make the trek home. That was a hell of a way to end the day after the tourney bubbleage. It was good to see a few bloggers mix it up and make an otherwise average day at the card room exciting again.
I don't see me being able to go to the WPBT Summer Classic or the WSOP this summer. I could probably go to the WSOP if won a seat but then again I'd probably have to sell it....dang! Anyway, it was good to see everybody again and I hope to sling the cards again soon.

Edit : (Rakefeeder recall) "It was $10 to me which I bumped to $30 to see where I was at. CK went all in for $36 more or something, but then you flat called and the pot buyer guy flat called. My Q9 surely had to be beat but I thought I might be live and getting 8-1 on my money so I called. I was planning on calling CK's $36 anyway".

Weekend stuff

Don't forget to play the Donkament tonight....fun times with some uber Donks. The rebuy is only a dollar so you don't have to worry about re-buying more than 50 times...which has been done before! I'm also headed down to the Woods of Fox on Sunday for an AM NL tourney (100.00) with a bunch of Mass. bloggers/degenerates/gamblers/HPTers (WWonka69, ittolm, bdidde, and rakefeeder to name a few) generally my kind of crowd. Have a great weekend!

Foxwoods quickie session

Went to Foxwoods on the 3rd. It was a quickly planned trip...my wife's mother offered to babysit and it took like 2 seconds for us to take her offer. Her house is on the way (and she plays the slots there so frequently that we get a free room in the Pequot tower-BOOM)! I left work early and we were off at about 5:00PM. We got there at about 7:30...just in time for 8:00PM reservations at the Cedar's steak house. I swear every time I go there the price goes up for the entrees. I saw some for over 60.00...ridiculous. I didn't feel like getting a huge meal....but the wife was distraught at the fact that I wasn't really hungry. (All I could think about at that point was playing some live poker)I ordered a single-cut prime rib. Just enough to fill me up and not enough to make me fall asleep...which I can do occasionally after a big meal. After the meal we took a walk into the casino and started to play some slots...I do this for a bit until the wife is settled in on the One-armed bandits (she gets some serious wampum points and that is a good thing when you can pay half the bill a Cedar's Steak house on wampum points). I couldn't find any video poker and that was actually my ploy to get to the poker room...so I lost a few bucks then headed out.

I saw some games that I might try in the future on the way to the poker room. One of them was Hold'em bonus...I think Sklansky had a hand in inventing that one. Anyway, it was packed and so were all the 15.00 blackjack tables...not that I play BlackJack much anymore. I go to the poker room and as soon as I walk in somebody asks if I want the new poker room/wampum card. Who am I to say no? The guy came back with the new card in like 10 minutes...not bad. I put in for a 1-2 NL table and was seated within 5 minutes. The table wasn't quite full but was pretty loose at first. To my right was a slightly angry 50-something lady. She told some divorce joke at one point and she also said she imported flowers and distributed them in Chicago for a living. She was pretty good. To her right was 21-22 year old Internet kid. He had a stack of chips and wasn't really playing any hands...he was busy talking to his 21 year-old buddy who looked as if he was 12 (he also had a stack of about 3000 in green and black chips)and on Ritalin. They were conversing about the WSOP and stuff like that. To his left was a 60-something year old guy that was pretty loose and aggressive. To his right was a 40-something year old Chinese guy....very loose...very aggressive and later got stacked by another LAGgy dude. To his right was some chick 30-ish(half Scottish and half Italian...as she said during some point). She played pretty well for a while but got stacked later. The divorced 50-something lady to my right said "Never trust anybody with freckles" as she jokingly said out loud and was involved with a 3-way pot with the Scottaliano-freckled chick. To her right was this guy maybe 35-40...he had a red face and was pretty buzzed...he was also a jokester and the table. He always tipped off his big hands by getting talkative and making jokes (so as not to alarm anybody...or so he thought). To his right was a 45-50 year old guy that hardly said a word...anytime he bet or was involved in a pot he had a pretty big hand. To his right was the crazy loose Asian dude. He was involved in almost every hand for the first hour or two. He left later on after he lost half his stack to the lady to his right....who was the 60-ish drunk lady. She had bright orange hair and tons of makeup on. She looked sort of like a female Ronald McDonald (I took a massive pot from her-130.00 which was a big pot for this table). to her right and my left was a pretty blond chick 30-ish...who was best friends with the Scottalian chick across the table as I found out later. She was stacked...and got repeatedly stacked and kept taking out cash.....cha-ching! So I played with most of these people for about 4 hours or so starting at 10:30. I took down a couple of big pots (for a 1-2 NL table at foxwoods 50-100.00 is a huge pot). The biggest was at least 130.00 give or take a little. I was involved in a pot with the female Ronald McDonald. I got Ax-Kx under the gun and raised it to 12 (standard for the night). She called and a couple of other people called for a total of about 48-50.00 The flop was Ax-Ax-7x. I bet 20....FRMcD called now the pot is about 70 after the blinds folded. 8x on the turn and she bets 10. I checked of course and she bet 10? I call and the pot is about 90. a 2x falls on river and I bet 20 and she called....with two pair 7's and 8's. The pot was 130.00...I probably should have gone all in and she probably would have called for another 80...oh well. There was the possibility of her having pocket 7's, 8's, or 2,s anyway. I left the table at 3:00AM....tired as hell but up about 165.00. There were people sleeping in all sorts of weird places. I noticed this on the way out of the poker room. I just can't stay awake all night anymore....it's probably good for me to keep the Foxwoods poker sessions shorter anyway. A Short session is about 4 to 5 hours long and plenty of time to do your thing. I would love to try some of there 100+ buy-in tourneys/satellites....I'm just never there when they start. I tried to get there for a 10:00AM weekday tourney and the one time I get there in time...they decided to cancel it. That was last fall. The next day while waiting to check out I decided to play some slots....I won another 155.00...no shit. One was a dollar slot that I put 40.00 into by mistake. I was pulling the lever for 5-10 bucks a spin....ooops. I hit some sevens on a lucky sevens and ran it up to 110.00. I cashed that out and went to a 'Wheel of Fortune' slot machine. I hit the wheel a bunch of times and once for 75 credits...on a 25 cent machine. I cashed out after I lost some back for another 45.00. That made for a total of +330.00 for 7 hours of gambling give or take. Face it...anytime you leave a tourist trap like that with more cash than you went with it's great thing. That is probably the last time I go to Foxwoods for a while...now that I'm in the process of trying to move. I have two properties to sell and one to buy that is contingent on my selling my current home.....sigh...
See ya on the virtual felt....
I may go to a local joint tonight though (wife is on summer break from teaching/admin. job at local high school)....the bar (Slickey's) to protect the innocent where I've played in a NL Hold'em league last year. These tourneys are fantastic for 40.00 entry fee and cash games afterwards for those who are knocked out. I've made some serious cash by just crashing these in the middle of a league season. Foxwoods maybe not but Slickey's....definitely....

Crazy hand at foxwoods

I played for about 4.5 hours on a 1-2 NL (300-max buy-in) table at Foxwoods. That's about half the time I usually play when I go there overnight. I left down about 50 and all things considered...could have been a lot more. I got out of a hand that was the craziest I've ever seen.
There were five people in the hand pre-flop....and four including me at the flop. I had 10x-10x. There were no flush draws or flushes at the end so I won't include suits. I was under the gun with my pocket tens. I raised it to 12 which was standard for the night. There was a guy two seats to my left (later found out to have K's) called. Another guy called with something like Ax-8x late position (Pocket K's were cracked countless times...I was bluffed off of them when a flop of Ax-8x-8x fell. I checked because the guy called my raise of 13....had to have an ace right? He said he had pocket J's so that was one hand I should have bet after the flop. But seriously I saw K's get cracked about 6 times in brutal fashion). Guy in the SB calls....and then the guy in the BB calls as well. The was at 60 and a flop of Ax-Kx-10x falls. I checked my set of tens. Guy to my left bets 15....guy in late position calls 15....guy in SB (pocket J's) thinks for a while and goes all in for about a total of 60. The guy in the BB insta-calls for about his last 45. The pot is now at T195. I fold. Guy to my left with Pocket K's calls for 60. Guy in late position folds. and with both the blinds all in and one other person with chips the pot was at a total of 255. Everybody flips over their cards and the BB flips of Jx-Qx off suite....Big Blind Special! The turn and river were a Jx and and an 8x....I guess the guy that went all-in with Pocket J's was all pissed off. I mean why would you go all-in on a flop of Ax-Kx-10x with pocket J's? The BB was loving it until I later cracked his K's with a full house of 9's full of 5's. Anyway a flopped Broadway straight over a set of K's and a set of J's...and if I didn't fold my hand a set of 10's as well. That was definitely the most crazy non-tournament hand I've ever been involved with.